Unfortunately that Debbie woman that Julie didn't really like was the eleven o'clock person, so when she got there Julie's mood dropped just a little.
Debbie was just such a derogatory person.
It was frustrating.
Julie completely forgot that it was Sunday, so people could get their schedules, but when two of the other waitresses popped in to get their schedules in person she realized it. Debbie walked up to give them their schedules, so Julie told Debbie she was going to run and cut some tomatoes real quick, call for her if she was needed.
Unfortunately, Julie forget to take the tomato corer with her, so as soon as she got back there she had to run back up front to get it.
Normally, she wouldn't even pay attention to what anyone was saying, but when she heard her own name her ears jumped to attention.
"Julie's closing four nights this week, wouldn't you feel threatened if you were her?" Debbie was saying.
Julie stopped where she was, not really visible to Debbie or the girls from the angle they were at as they looked over their schedules and gossiped.
One of the waitresses—Tara—said, "You know what Leigh told me? Julie lives with Aaron. I guess it was just supposed to be temporary or something, but I don't know," she said, the last part of the sentence coming out in a sing-song tone.
Martha, the girl that came in with Tara said, "I wonder if it's his?"
"What?" Tara asked, turning to look at her friend.
"The baby," she said, her voice lowering a little. "She's pregnant, right? Why else would he have to 'temporarily' move her in with him, get her a job here and within a couple weeks be training her to take over Leigh's job? She was probably a casual hook-up or something gone bad."
"I can't imagine Leigh's happy about this," said Debbie, not doing a good job at holding back her smile. "She's so used to being Aaron’s pet. I really thought they were dating, but I guess if he knocked up Julie…"
There was more to that last sentence, but they lowered their voices at the end and Julie didn't hear it.
Narrowing her eyes, she thought, What gossips!
Part of her wanted to listen and see what else they had to say, but the more dominant side was just totally annoyed, so –as if she had just walked up front—she went breezing up to Debbie and reached behind her to get the tomato corer.
"See you later, girls," Debbie said easily, as if she hadn't just been gossiping about Julie seconds earlier. "Do you need something, hon?" Debbie asked.
"No," Julie said a little too shortly.
Debbie looked slightly worried for a second—with reason, Julie decided. After all, if Julie really had the kind of pull that they had been insinuating, she would be using her power to send Debbie to the unemployment line.
But Julie said nothing. She just took the tomato corer and walked back to continue what she was doing.
---
When Julie got off work that day, she had two missed calls that she definitely didn't feel like returning. One of them was from her mother. The other was from Matt.
Rolling her eyes, she decided she would return one and ignore the other.
"Hel-lo?" said a female voice on the other end.
"Hey, Mom," Julie greeted.
"How come you didn't answer your phone?"
"I was at work," Julie said as she entered the apartment, locking the door behind her and slipping her shoes off.
"Oh. Well, what are you doing?"
"Getting ready to find some sort of munchable thing in these cupboards—and a big glass of milk. You'd be thrilled; I drink milk every single day now."
It was true, Julie had hated milk since childhood, and her mother had always tried to get her to drink it to no avail.